The Flight of the Storch

Germany's Fieseler Fi 156 Storch

Originally published in The Dispatch magazine, Volume 20, Number 2, Summer, 1995
edition. If you are interested in subscribing to The Dispatch please write
to The Commemorative Air Force, ATTN: Dispatch Editor, PO Box 62000, Midland, TX
79711-2000 or call (432) 563-1000. Reproduced with permission.

As the Fieseler Storch, pronounced "stork," approaches
for a landing, the image of its awkward, big-winged, long-legged Bird name-sake comes to
mind. Approaching the ground, the plane seems to be flying impossibly slow. Touching down,
the Storch rolls less than twice its own length before stopping. Designed in 1935 By
Fieseler, the Storch was the first successful production short takeoff and landing (STOL)
aircraft in the world.

Gerhard Fieseler was credited with 22 aerial victories as a fighter pilot in World War
I, and was one of Germany's greatest aerobatic pilots after the war. In 1934 he won the
World Aerobatic Championship, flying a biplane designed and built by his own company,
FieselerFlugzeugbau. In 1939 the company name was changed to Gerhard Fieseler Werke.

By 1935, Fieseler's plant was building Heinkel-designed trainers and fighters under
license for the expanding Luftwaffe. That same year the Fi 156 was designed to meet a
specification for an army cooperation and liaison aircraft, also capable of evacuating
casualties. Metal slats were fixed onto the leading edge of the long wings, and the entire
trailing edge, including the ailerons, was hinged and slotted, to further increase lift
and allow controlled slow flight. The long legs of the landing gear contained oil and
spring shock absorbers that compressed about 18 inches on landing.

The first Fi 156A prototype flew in the spring of 1936, powered by an Argus 10C
air-cooled, inverted V-8 engine of 240 horsepower, giving a top speed of 109 mph. The
Storch, as the design was quickly dubbed, could fly as slow as 32 mph, take off into a
light wind in less than 150 feet and regularly land in 50 to 60 feet, less than twice its
length. Its wings could be folded back along the fuselage, allowing it to be carried on a
trailer or even tugged behind a vehicle. The Storch was ordered into production by the
Luftwaffe, and the first Fi 156As entered service in mid-1937.

Fieseler had planned a second more advanced version of the design, the Fi 156B, which
would have had movable wing slats and other aerodynamic improvements to increase the top
speed to about 130 mph. But the military did not order this version, staying with fixed
slats for all subsequent Storch models.

The military significance and utility of the Storch's STOL performance is best
understood when compared to the development of the helicopter. Germany's first successful
helicopter design, the Focke Achgelis Fa 61, did not make its first test flight until
1937, and a few larger, twin rotor Fa 223s saw service from 1942. But in 1937, the Storch
was demonstrating landings in a moderate wind in less than half its own length - only 16
feet!

The improved Fi 156C series entered production in 1938, the C-1 model being a
three-seat liaison aircraft and light staff-transport, while the C-2 was a reconnaissance
version with a crew of two and a rearward firing MG 15 machine gun. Both versions were
powered by the Argus 10C engine. About 227 Fi 156Cs were delivered to the Luftwaffe in
1939, and a few Storchs were sold to other countries, including the Soviet Union. During
the German advance into France and Belgium in 1940, Storchs often acted as ambulance and
rescue aircraft, picking up downed aircrews and badly injured troops, often under enemy
fire close to the front lines. By 1941, the multi-role Fi 156C-3 was in production,
capable of performing any of the Storch's missions. An improved Argus 10P engine of 270
horsepower was standard in both the C-3 and the C-5 version, which could carry a special
external fuel tank or aerial camera housing.

The final major production version, the Fi 156D-1, entered production in late 1941,
with modifications to allow two stretcher-borne casualties to be loaded quickly through
drop-down windows and a larger upward-hinged side panel on the right side of the fuselage.
Both C and D model Storchs continued to be delivered into 1944 and saw service with the
Luftwaffe in every theater of war.

One of the aircraft's most notorious exploits occurred on Sept. 12,1943, when a Stotch
landed on the only flat ground at a mountain-top hotel in the Italian Alps and rescued
former Italian dictator Benito Mussolini from his imprisonment by the new pro-Allied
government. The mission had been planned for a Focke Achgelis 223 helicopter, but when the
helicopter broke down, the faithful Storch was substituted and completed the mission.

A total of about 2,900 Fi 156s were produced during the nine years from 1937 to 1945.
When the main Fieseler plant in Kassel, Germany, switched to building Focke WuIf 190
fighters in 1943, Storch production was shifted to a factory at Chocen, Czechoslovakia. A
large number were also built after April 1942 at the captured Morane-Saulnier factory at
Puteaux, France. French-built versions featured an upward hinged cabin door, instead of
the original forward hinged.

It was at the Puteaux plant in 1943-44 that Gerhard Fieseler built two prototypes of a
new five-seat design, the Fi 256. Although similar in appearance and concept to the
Storch, the Fi 256 was a new design with a larger passenger cabin, retractable wing slats
and much cleaner aerodynamics. Designed both for the military and civilian market, four
persons could be seated in two rows of seats behind the pilot, and the engine was the same
Argus 10P used in later Storchs.

The Fi 256 did not enter production, and even photographs of the two prototypes are not
common. However, in 1989, a visitor to the Dallas/Ft. Worth Wing of the Confederate Air
Force, offered to donate such photos, and other items to the American Airpower Heritage
Museum. The visitor explained that he had been part of the American forces who captured
Fieseler at the end of the war, and that he had swept a number of photos and sketches off
of Fieseler's desk to keep as souvenirs.

The photos and sketches were accepted by the DFW Wing as a donation and were later
determined to include photographs of the Fi 256 prototype, as well as pictures of Fieseler
and his friends. Some of these previously unknown photos are included with this article.

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